The Lost Art of Just Picking Up the F**king Phone

It’s interesting how technology is allowing, encouraging maybe, recruiters to lose some of their basic skills.

It’s a funny old thing but before the internet if you wanted to speak to a possible candidate, for whom you didn’t have a CV, you had two choices; either phone them or hang around outside their office. Some crafty recruiters did the later (I was never quite that bold) but the majority of us actually phoned the individual. At work!

These days it seems to me that recruiters will try anything rather than actually picking up the phone; emails, LinkedIn mails, twitter DMs, Facebook messages. Don’t get me wrong if I was still recruiting I’d be using all of those tactics and more. However, the way I’d be differentiating myself from all those other recruiters is by calling potential candidates, at their place of work, and talking with them about the role.

In fact it’s not just that recruiters don’t want to phone prospective candidates, it’s that many aren’t even sure if they should. Just recently there was a conversation on the 4,600 strong Recruiter Online Facebook group that asked the question “Calling a candidate at their office number is a good idea or not?” There are great comments on that thread.

Finally, when I chose my cheery title for the blog I did a quick Google search to check no one else had written the same article (as I always do) and I noticed that Stephen O’Donnell wrote about this right back in 2010 when, after attending one of Directors Events, he heard the legendary James Caan suggest recruiters should Pick Up the F**king Phone!. James hit the nail on the head.